UPDATE — About John James Reid’s Mother

Reminder – John James Reid presents from his latest collection of poetry, Mid-Atlantic, this Saturday, August 26, at 7PM, at Village Books in Fairhaven. Grab a chair, no one reads better than an Irish poet! I’ll be there to introduce John.

John’s mother, Maureen Reid, raised her ten children in Belfast during the Irish Troubles. John’s father was killed during a conflict that raised terror in the households of Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Conflict pitted Catholics against Protestants from the 1960s to Good Friday, 1998. Acts of terrorism were common. Raising children during these times an act of heroism.

About this John relayed this morning:

“Fine Point Films in Ireland is currently filming a documentary about an international art exhibition called Silent Testimony, which contains 18 dramatic portraits of victims of the conflict in N. Ireland. One of the portraits is of my Mother, Maureen Reid. It has been in Belfast, Dublln, Paris and is due in the US in the not too distant future. The story of the exhibition and artist is on the web.

“I mentioned the idea of writing a script about the life of my remarkable mother and the film company is very interested in this and encouraging me to do it. It will tell the story of a modern Irish mother, and mother of 10 children, who raised them all on her own, after my father was killed in the conflict. She never re-married. She became very well known for her unbelievable journey and was selected as one of the sitters for the exhibition. She passed away several months before it opened.

“It will be a story of great love, sadness, heroism, violence, art, and a celebration of Irish life and humour. It is a big idea but strangely the structure of it came to me almost immediately. Poetry may have to wait a while.”

Now, it is my belief that to write such a script is the essence of poetry, in just another form.

Don’t miss John James Reid at Village Books in Fairhaven this Saturday, August 26 at 7 PM. The book is Mid-Atlantic, available at Village Books in Bellingham.